My height is 5'10". I did not lift any free weights while losing weight, my exercise consisted mainly of aerobic and resistance training. Some more in-depth information follows:
Sometime after my 18th birthday when I come to a realization much too late, I had been getting progressively larger and quite frankly obese and it was not a product of being a growing teen. A combination of absolutely no self control when it came to eating and a lifestyle that had been getting less physically active all the time had me taking notice that my friends were using my weight for the usually friendly “jabs” quite often, I was getting winded walking up stairs, and I could no longer complete even one proper pull up; an activity that I used to be at the top of my P.E. class in back in elementary school. We did not have a scale in my house making it hard to monitor my weight if I had even cared up to that point in my life so I went out and purchased one. I weighed-in over 260lbs; it was like a slap in the face telling me it was time for some change.
The largest contributing factor to my weight problem was all the access I had to unhealthy food so I quit my job at Burger King and went to work for the lumber yard at Menards. The manual labor, heavy lifting, and the effort to make work a work out by always pushing myself jump started my weight loss. I examined the way I was eating and drinking and decided Mt. Dew was the next to go since I was constantly hearing about how bad it is for you on so many levels. My eating habits still were not great at this point but I was no longer living on fast food, instead I was eating food from home and it was about this time that I started becoming more aware of nutrition fact labels on the food I was purchasing. The efforts I put into losing weight were minimal at this point, mostly just trying to eat less junk food and trying not to be lazy, though I still did not participate in regular exercise because I figured the hard work I was putting in at my job was enough.
My efforts remained generally speaking pretty minimal for a while, just trying to avoid fast food and Mt. Dew; eating and drinking better (though still not fantastic by any means). Sometime in 2007 I decided to take my weight loss to a next level, eating less fast food and cutting out Mt. Dew was no longer enough. I had moved to a sales floor position at work so I no longer had a manual labor factor to my job and I needed to make up for that lost physical activity because my weight had hit a plateau. I got a membership at the community center gym and started using it frequently, cut back on pop as a whole, made every effort to make healthier choices if I did go out for some type of fast food. I purchased the 8 minute abs video because we used it a lot in high school P.E. and in addition to that I made use of the internet to look into living a healthier lifestyle.
It was around this time that I also started using mental imagery and self talk more effectively, which soon became a few of my most powerful motivation tools and remains so to this day as I use it almost daily. To clarify on what I mean by more effectively, I had used mental imagery and self talk off and on when I first started losing weight but didn't have any solid knowledge on how to properly use them. I primarily used them in a negative means for “away from” motivation. As a matter of fact it wasn’t even my research into fitness that lead me to start using mental imagery and self talk but rather a few books I read on neuro-linguistic programming (something worth looking into for anyone that needs help getting motivated). This trend of research to expand my knowledge and competence in fitness and nutrition as well as my attempts to increase skills useful for them continued for a few years; and as time went on my interest in nutrition and fitness kept growing.
As time went on I started using the gym with increased frequency and intensity always trying to push myself to run faster and farther, do more pull-ups and push-ups, work my abs longer, and increase not only my reps but also the weight I was lifting on the various resistance training machines. The machines I tried to use every time I was in the gym (which got the point of being at the least every other day, more often then not though almost everyday to some extent) were for leg extensions, leg curls, calf extensions, lat pulls, shoulder press, pec fly's, chest press, tricep extensions, and ab curls. In addition to that I used the treadmill frequently shooting for a minimum or 2 miles once I could handle it, on average 3-5 miles when I was conditioned for it, and once I went 10 1/4 miles just to see how far I could run without going too crazy (I was still up around 170 at the time). I started using a multivitamin and fish oil supplement every morning and still do to this day.
From around 160lb and down I no longer used the community center gym any longer. At this point my physical activity consisted of running outside a lot, pretty much as often as possible, "running around" a lot at work just trying to always be moving and at a fast pace, I also got a membership at a rock climbing gym called Vertical Endeavors and quickly grew to love the place. I went climbing all the time, and they have a small "work out" room with some basic machines, dumbbells, and cardio machines that I used to get additional exercise.
As time went on I had a lot of misconceptions cleared up and I learned a lot nutrition tips and more effective exercises that helped me past a few weight plateaus and finally got me to a point where I no longer wanted to lose weight and could take off my shirt in public without being embarrassed or feeling “physique anxiety”.
Currently I still run a lot, try to rock climb once or twice a week, use the ab ripper x video and 8 minute abs at least every other day, and I have strength training class twice a week for an hour and a half in school. I drink exclusively water throughout the day (I do drink alcohol and I am going to try to cut back on it again). Breakfast generally consists of fat free yogurt, a banana, a bagel with peanut-butter on it. Lunch generally is an apple, a vegetarian friendly brown rice dish that I am going to post the recipe for soon, fat free yogurt, and more often than not a granola bar of some form. Dinner varies a lot but it quite often consists of chili lime shrimp Ramen, a turkey sandwich with honey mustard (I avoid mayo as much as possible), an apple, and some pickle slices or peanuts. I do eat other things because you gotta treat yourself sometimes, I believe if you avoid the food you really want ALL the time you are more likely to break down and binge on it at some point.
Sorry for the long winded story but hopefully it provided some good insight into how I got to where I am today and maybe those who read it will get some good tips from it.
